The subject matter herein relates generally to multi-port connector assemblies.
Due to their favorable electrical characteristics, coaxial cables and connectors have grown in popularity for interconnecting electronic devices and peripheral systems. The coaxial connectors include an inner conductor coaxially disposed within an outer conductor, with a dielectric material separating the inner and outer conductors. A typical application utilizing coaxial connectors is a radio-frequency (RF) application.
Typically, one or more coaxial connectors are mounted to a circuit board of an electronic device, such as at an input/output port of the device or alternatively, internal to the device. Some systems include a plurality of coaxial connectors held in a common housing. One particular example of a system that uses multiple coaxial connectors is a backplane module having a plurality of board mounted coaxial connectors with a separate mating assembly for mating with a daughtercard module.
However, known coaxial connectors are not without disadvantages. For instance, the coaxial connectors typically have a cylindrical shape, and are thus susceptible to rotating within the housing. Some systems utilize right angle connectors that extend from a circuit board and travel along a right angle path. Rotation of the right angle connectors is problematic because the coaxial connectors need to be positioned at precise locations for mounting to the board. Such alignment problems are exaggerated when multiple coaxial connectors need to be simultaneously mounted to the circuit board. When the mounting pins of the coaxial connectors are misaligned because the coaxial connector has rotated within the housing, mounting to the circuit board is difficult. Misalignment may cause damage to the mounting pins, the coaxial connectors and/or the circuit board.
A need thus exists for coaxial connectors that may be oriented with respect to the housing for mounting to a circuit board. A need also exists for coaxial connectors that have mounting pins that are less prone to buckling when the coaxial connectors are mounted to circuit boards.